STAR WARS: THE CYBERTRONIAN CHRONICLES
by DhuryamDhuryam
Summary: Post FOTJ. It is a year after the events of Crucible. Ben Skywalker is sent to hunt down Vestara after Jedi start turning up dead. And Luke is off with Han and Leia investigating a bizarre terrorist attack. But it is only the beginning of something much bigger, much worse. For the war begun on Cybertron, between the Autobots and Decepticons, now threatens the whole galaxy.


Dramatis Personae

Ben Skywalker; Jedi Knight (male human)

Han Solo; Captain, _Millennium Falcon_ (male human)

Jaina Solo Fel; Jedi Master (female human)

Luke Skywalker; Jedi Grand Master (male human)

Leia Organa Solo; Jedi Knight (female human)

Megatron; Decepticon leader (male Cybertronian)

Optimus Prime; Autobot leader (male Cybertronian)

Starscream; Decepticon second in command (male Cybertronian)

Vestara Khai; Sith Saber (female human)

Wyn Dorvin; Galactic Alliance Chief of State (male human)

**Some of the transformations might be hard to follow, but they are not vital to the plot.**

Coruscant

An immense demolition droid was demolishing one of many irreparably damaged buildings. It was one of many new Demolition Droids manufactured by Incom, the same company that made X-wings. They were slightly less expensive than the EVS Construction Droids. These droids resembled cubes, half as high as they were long, with all the corners and edges rounded. And they rode on repulsors. The droid's many arms, with their various attachments tore off pieces and fed them into chutes leading to conveyor belts, where the various materials were separated for recycling. _Everything is going according to plan for once, _thought Wawrakooma the Wookiee Operations Manager. His people were naturally brilliant when it came to mechanical aptitude.

It had been about two years since Abeloth, with help from the Sith, had tried to take over Coruscant. Abeloth had triggered a powerful seismic event in order to end as many lives as possible in order to feed off the darkness caused by so much death. That's what Luke Skywalker had told that cute Devaronian BAMR reporter. Wawrakooma had no reason to disbelieve that. Yes, the Jedi were strange. But they did not lie about things they did not think anyone would believe.

Wawrakooma grumbled as the droid suddenly stopped working and seemed to start shaking. The Wookiee took out his comlink to call the repair crew, but froze in the middle of lifting it to his mouth. The whole darn thing seemed to be coming apart. The four vertical 'edges' of the droid began to separate from the main body. A large, blunt claw extended from the bottom of each 'edge'. Each of the four 'edges' were pushed outward on gargantuan armatures, composed of two segments, connecting to the center of whatever the heck this thing was.

As the 'legs' touched down to the ground, the droid split into a top and a bottom section. The four remaining bottom sections which had not become legs joined at the center to form a flattened almost-cube. And then the almost-cube, as though it were composed of many relatively tiny panels, shimmered into a geodesic dome.

And while all this was happening, a rectangular section nearly spanning the droid's entire length, rose up on a complex matrix of armatures. Seams began to appear along that rectangular section, splitting it into many square panels. These panels bent somewhat, as though the rectangular section was some giant millipede. The two sections on either side of this 'millipede' moved away on stout armatures as three stalks, each tipped with masses of red photoreceptors, extruded from the front. Spikes came up out of the serpentine neck and other places as long barrels extended from the front of the two sections that had parted from the neck.

In mere seconds the construction droid had turned into a giant destroyer droid, but with four legs, and the laser cannons connected directly to the shoulders. The top half of this giant droideka rotated toward his observation station. Red lightning leapt from the spikes on one of the laser cannons, turning the building to dust.

_Jade Shadow _

It was a big step, thought Ben as he watched the reversion clock countdown to zero, being given responsibility of his father's ship. His father's and his mother's ship. Ben still had trouble believing that his cousin Jacen Solo had actually murdered his mother Mara.

Someone had been murdering Jedi. Vestara Khai. His father Luke Skywalker, the Jedi Grand Master had sent Ben to hunt down the Sith girl he had once loved, and still loved-as much as it shamed him. Most likely, Ben would have to kill her. But after Vestara had tried to kill his cousin Allana-who happened to be the daughter of Jacen Solo-everyone knew that the Sith girl could never be trusted again.

Ben sighed and glanced over at Tahiri, seated nearby in the copilot seat. He knew his father hadn't sent her with him just for support. If for some reason Ben couldn't kill Vestara the task would fall to Tahiri. About a year prior the two Jedi had been sent to investigate sightings of a Sith Meditation Sphere named _Ship_. Vestara used the ancient sentient vessel as her personal steed.

Yes, Tahiri was beautiful and extremely cute-though Ben would never have admitted it. But she was about twice his age. Sure, there was that singer he'd heard about, with the boyfriend who was fifteen years younger ...

A beep from the chrono brought Ben back to the present. They were here.

Coruscant

A squadron of X-wings soared down from the sky toward what clearly was not an Incom Demolition Droid. It oriented its spikes toward the fighters, sending forth a hail of crimson fire. The X-wings replied with proton torpedoes. Their target destroyed most of the torpedoes with its laser cannons. The rogue droid then fired a few of its own missiles to destroy the remaining torps. One of the X-wings was caught in hail of red lightning and detonated. One of its wings ricocheted off one of the droid's legs. It hit a sharp blade and fell to the ground in two pieces. Realizing they'd just get themselves killed the remaining eleven-now ten, since another X-wing had just been vaped-pilots headed back for the relative safety of space, and the Star Destroyer that orbited Coruscant.

Massive sheets of fire plummeted from the sky, ripping the droid to pieces. Thousands would have been killed in this desperate measure. But anyone near that monstrosity would have died anyway.

The screen went dark as the footage ended. Luke Skywalker turned to face Wyn Dorvin, the reluctant Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance. "You were right to call me," the Jedi Master told him.

"You have any idea what in the Void that thing was?"

"No more than you, sir… Could you rewind that video some?" Luke asked. Wyn Dorvin handed Luke a black cylindrical object. "Thanks." The Jedi Master took the proffered remote and held down a leftward facing arrow.

Luke stopped the video, then went forward a little, then paused it again. The image panned in, magnifying something. Some sort of stylized face. It was triangular and had a menacing quality to it. He turned to Threepio. "Ever seen anything like this before?"

"I'm afraid not, sir," the protocol droid responded.

"I'll get my people on it," Wyn Dorvin told him. "This isn't over, is it?" he added.

"Don't need the Force to see that," remarked Han Solo.

"I think we need to examine the wreckage," suggested Luke.

"It might not be… dead," warned Leia. Luke patted the lightsaber hanging at his belt. His twin sister rolled her eyes. Her brother still had yet to completely recover from the wound Abeloth had inflicted on him.

"There's some radiation coming from this thing," Luke commented as he, Han, and Leia approached the remains of the giant droideka. "It's not dangerous," he assured the others. "It's similar to body heat."

Han frowned. "Was this thing alive?"

"I'm not sure," said his brother-in-law. "It might have been. But I wasn't here before it was destroyed."

"I don't think you'd be alive to tell us anything if you had been," Han remarked.

"Probably not," Luke replied absently as he bent down to examine some of the wreckage. His forehead furrowed in deep concentration. "It almost feels like… cells."

"Nano tech," Han suggested.

"Maybe," Luke didn't sound convinced. "It's more complex."

Han sighed. Of course it was.

Over the next couple hours the three of them loaded some of the debris onto a hover cart. Per Leia's suggestion they would take what they'd collected to Ghent. If the brilliant slicer could get any of the code they might be able to figure out who was responsible for what had happened here.

"Why don't the two of you get that crate loaded," Luke told Han and Leia. "I'll see if I can find Artoo and Threepio." He shook his head; he'd told the two droids to wait by the _Falcon_.

"entirely untrue, you daft bucket of bolts," complained Threepio's voice. "The two events are completely unrelated. Master Luke will be very unhappy with your behavior." The arguing droids rounded the corner. "I'm terribly sorry, Master Luke. But there seems to be something seriously awry with Artoo's logic circuits."

Luke reached out to the little droid in the Force. Though the astromech droid wasn't alive in the traditional sense Luke could still recognize Artoo's Force presence. But this was not Artoo. And Luke could feel that same strange radiation he'd felt from the demolition droid.

"It's not your fault Threepio," Luke said. "Why don't you go see if Han and Leia need any help prepping the Falcon?"

"Of course, sir."

"I'll be up after I have a talk with Artoo, here," Luke said.

"A very wise decision, Master Luke," said Threepio as he made his way up the boarding ramp.

Luke felt a sudden surge of malice; his lightsaber _snapp-hissed_ to life as he summoned it to his right hand.

At the same time the Artoo imposter began to roll toward the Jedi Master. Each of the two main legs split into four smaller ones. The body of the droid rose up so that the eight legs were connected to the middle of the body. The front paneling opened like a pair of sliding doors. The retractable foot moved out of the 'chest' on armatures. A long, needle-like drill came out of the bottom of the foot, and began spinning. The remainder two sections of the chest paneling flipped up over the legs, revealing themselves to be long rifle barrels.

A circular portion of top of the droid's dome head lifted half a foot to reveal another photoreceptor. The upper half of the back of the cylindrical body split down the center and rejoined to become the front of new, smaller body. The lower portion raised up to complete the cylinder. There were still a few minor changes as what now resembled a giant buzz droid leapt into the air toward Luke.

The two rifle barrels hammered to life and Luke found himself deflecting, not laser bolts, but some sort of alloy pellets. Just like those Verpine shatterguns. It was much harder to deflect these things, as they were so much more solid. Luke dove to the ground, rolled under the droid and came to his feet behind it. The giant pistoeka twisted in mid air, maintaining its fire on him as it did so. The mechanical monster was rapidly scuttling toward him less than a second after touching the ground.

Luke charged at his attacker and jumped up into the air as his opponent slashed at him with a razor-tipped leg. The Jedi Master slashed at the droid's head in midair, but the buzz droid easily dodged the attack. The droid again turned to face look as he landed.

It became a fierce melee as Luke blocked slash after slash with his blade. If he stayed close enough to this monstrosity he could avoid the two rifles. But then he had to worry about eight deadly, razor-tipped legs and that wicked drill. He had hoped his lightsaber would be able to cut the legs off, but they were as tough as vonduun crab armor.

The monster pistoeka lifted its drill toward Luke's right hand. He slammed the lightsaber down on it, and was burned by the resulting sparks. He ducked back to avoid his opponents slashing legs, and then was forced to deflect incoming alloy pellets.

This was not going to end well. Luke felt a nudge in the Force from Leia and, having some idea of her intentions leapt into the air. As he deflected more pellets in mid air, he also created an energy field with his left hand. A split second later the buzz droid exploded in a shower of glowing orange shrapnel. The metal fragments sprayed against Luke's energy shield. He felt a horrible burning sensation in his chest as a piece of metal got through the energy shield. Right where Abeloth had wounded him two years prior.

Leia bounded down the boarding ramp, lightsaber drawn and humming. But she shut it off and reattached it to her belt as she felt that the mechanical monstrosity lying on the ground was 'dead'. She knelt down by her brother. His face was so pale white that for a moment she thought he was fading away into the Force.

**The demolition droid was Scavenger and the Artoo impostor was Frenzy. I'd like to know what y'all think so far. Constructive criticism can only help.**


End file.
